The maintenance department is in the unique position of interacting with most, if not all, other departments.

As a result, it pays to develop a culture of collaboration. It makes your team’s job easier, which also makes your job easier.

What’s a Culture of Collaboration?

Building a culture of collaboration means your employees communicate and work together across functional and departmental lines. See also: Promote the Maintenance Profession to Attract Employees.

It’s not just management speak, however. High-performing organizations often find a collaborative company culture plays a huge role in everything from employee retention to productivity.

Creating a culture of collaboration also enables your organization to benefit from your team’s knowledge.

Maintenance techs are often a great resource to identify ways to do things better or make things safer. That’s because their hands-on experience with your assets gives them insight into what’s working well—and what’s not.

What Can I Do to Encourage Collaboration?

Contrary to popular belief, improving collaboration doesn’t have to take a lot of time. You can develop better working relationships by just spending a few minutes each day making sure people feel heard and valued.

Here are six ways to encourage collaboration…

Invest in technology that makes collaboration easy.
Use your CMMS software to improve communication. For instance, automated updates and notifications make sure everyone is on the same page.

Prioritize teamwork.
Your workplace culture starts at the top, so managers should lead by example with sincere efforts. Asking for employee feedback and ideas should be your first step.

Build relationships between team members.
Employees who have strong working relationships with coworkers are more likely to take on new challenges. For example, team building and off-site meetings are two great places to start.

Make time for face-to-face communication when possible.
Talk to people in person when possible, and encourage your team to do the same. Sometimes contextual messages get lost in digital communication.

Schedule casual check-ins.
Take the time to casually chat with all team members to get informal feedback and information.

Celebrate achievements.
Often the maintenance department doesn’t get a lot of credit for their contributions. As a result, make sure everyone knows how your team impacts the whole organization.

Maintenance teams aren’t short of ideas on ways to improve things, particularly as it often directly affects their workload. Above all, make the most of their knowledge.

What are you doing to create a culture of collaboration? Leave a comment or contact us, because we all can learn from each other.

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